title: Tolerance thresholds for Aedes albopictus and Aedes caspius in Italian urban areas.
abstract: With nuisance mosquito species, the goal of integrated pest management is to keep mosquito density below a tolerance level that is often set by economic, ecological, and political factors. This study compares actual human annoyance, as measured by a phone survey, with several measures of mosquito abundance, in order to determine a threshold that is both relevant and practical. The efficiency of CO2-baited traps, container index (CI), and oviposition traps for monitoring Aedes albopictus, and CO2-baited traps for monitoring Aedes caspius, was evaluated. CO2-baited traps were confirmed to be of low efficiency in Ae. albopictus collection, while correlation matrices showed a good relationship between CI and the number of eggs collected (R = 0.91), and between number of eggs and phone-survey nuisance level estimates (R = 0.88). Correlation between CI and phone-survey nuisance levels was slightly lower (R = 0.78). We found a close relationship between the nuisance level declared by residents and mosquito captures obtained with CO2-baited traps (Ae. caspius) and ovitraps (Ae. albopictus). An equation is presented to estimate annoyance according to dwelling characteristics and to the presence of children in the family.
authors.affiliation: Centro Agricoltura Ambiente G. Nicoli, Via Argini Nord 3351, 40014 Crevalcore, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carrieri
authors.forename: Romeo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bellini
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maccaferri
authors.forename: Lorenza
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gallo
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maini
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Celli
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000330:Aedes; D000368:Aged; D000818:Animals; D002947:Cities; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007300:Insect Control / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011156:Population Density; D011639:Public Opinion; D014505:Urban Population